currently reading: eleanor & park

eleanor & park  by rainbow rowell

in my pursuit to immerse myself into the Y.A. genre, i have really taken to miss rowell's stuff. she is really really good at capturing the voice of a young adult. in  fangirl  she is a girl starting her first semester of freshman year in college. in this one, she takes on the voices of both a girl and a boy (16). that's difficult, since girls and boys are usually in totally different mindsets at any given age. but i'm telling you, i buy it. eleanor & park takes you back and forth from, you guessed it, eleanor's view and park's view of the same life in nebraska.  they go to the same school, ride the same bus, and yet, they lead two totally separate lives. i love how miss rowell shows you little pieces of their backgrounds all throughout the book, rather than giving it all on the first couple pages. you keep learning about the characters as they get put into the situations. as someone who is trying to get into this genre, i give it two thumbs up. shoot, i even liked it for myself because there were some serious 80s throwbacks--the story is set in 1986. 

that brings me to my next point: i can really tell that she wrote what she knew. i was only 1 when this book took place (if even that),  but i didn't feel like i was out of the loop when it came to references. there were enough context clues for me to figure out any i didn't get. and i actually felt compelled to research a couple of them! little history lesson in pop culture never hurt anybody! 

as i start writing more in the Y.A. realm, i am going to take a note from this genius from nebraska. i am going to write from not only where i know, but also when i know. i know high school from 2000-2004. i lived it for 8 hours a dayyyyy. i think it would be silly for me to believe i could do any justice to a high school setting now, unless i sat in the classes for an entire year...and even then, i don't think like a high schooler now (can't un-ring a bell or perspective) so all the petty stuff would be brushed off immediately! 

thanks, rainbow.thanks a heap. i love your stories. 

love, ashlyne